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REMARKS 



BENJ. C. BUTLER, 



OF WARREN COUNTY, 



In Assembly, Jan. 20, 1881 



GovERNOi\'s Message. 



" )VhAT J HAVE SAID, MY ^ORDS, CONCEI^NINO THIS CAUSE, IS, ) AM CONFIDENT, APPI^OVED BY 
ALL. )VhAT ) HAVE ADVANCED IN GENEI^AL, CONTRAI^Y TO THE USAGE OF THE FOI^UM AND THE 
BAR, WILL, ) HOPE, BE TAKEN IN OOOD PAI^T BY YOU." CiCERO. 



ALBANY, N.^Y. 
I88i. 






JUN 3 1910 



The New Capitol. 

REMARKS 



OF 



, HON. BENJ. C. BUTLER, 

OF WARREN COUNTY, 

ON THE 

GOVERNOR'S MESSAGE. 

.Tan. 2a, l^J^l. 



Mr. Chairman — If brevity is the soul of wisdom as well 
as wit, the sweeping review of public affairs by his Excellency, 
the Governor, may well be commended as both witty and 
wise. 

The matters therein referred to will receive the customary 
attention of this Assembly. 

The Governor notices the progress of the work upon the 
NEW CAPITOL. He also asks us to "look on the broken arch 
— the ruined wall," of this chamber. He says: 

"A large stone in one' of the ribs of the arch was found to 
have been fractured* and completely severed. Notwithstand- 
ing a thorough inves^tigation, the superintendent has been 
unable to make any satisfactory explanation of the cause." 
********* 

Further on he says: 

"Whatever you may do to lighten the public burdens, will 
go far to promote this great end of good government." 

"The honor and welfare of the State are thus committed 
to your care; its treasury placed in your keeping." 

In what I have to say at this time, I propose to confine 
myself to this subject of the new capitoi,, and I desire to 
speak thus early in the session, because I believe it to be our 
duty to sound this financial abyss to its bottom, if it has any 
bottom, and to make no further appropriations in this direc- 
tion until that has been done. 

It seems to me, sir, the generous aspirations of the people 
in this direction have been wantonly trifled with. Since 1869 
a steady and unstinted stream of money has been poured into 
this building, being an average of one million of dollars per 
cinnuuj, the whole of which, according to the Comptroller's 
report, now amounts to the bewildering sum of ?5'//,4«? 5, ^<5(?, 
— while the total cost of the National capitoi at Washington 
is $10,723,428,— and we cannot yet see the beginning of the 
end. AVe are introduced into gloomy corridors, from which 
the light of day is nearly shut out; committee rooms which 
would be discounted by any reputable lawyer's office in this 



city and when we reach this chamber, we find a room, with 
cross-li-hts which seriously affect the eyesight, whose accous- 
tics are abominable, whose ventilation is draughty and 
imperfect, and the crumbling and faithless sandstone of the 
ceiling is a synonyme for architectural quackery. 

I have read in the Albany city hand book that this is the 
grandest legislative building in the world, and I confess I 
have been somewhat inquisitive to know from whence^the idea 
was obtained of this State Capital, which in its unfinished state 
has cost the state nearly twelve millions of dollars. I have 
looked into history and have searched back in the past 
to find some clue, some thing which would suggest the image 
to which the architect has here sought to give a body, 

"A local habitation and a name," 
since architecture in its aesthetic sense or as a branch of the 
fine £irts "is a means of giving external force, a sensible ex- 
nrpssion to mental concetations or ideas. , ^ , . ^ 

^ lirthey have given us a hint in the wonderful picture on 
the no'rthern Wall. Without an interpreter, it might be 
thought to depict the Chief of the Evil Spirits, who 
was seeking to leave this Chamber. But we are informed 
that it represents "the allegory of Ahriman," or, 'the flight 
of Evil before Good." Here, then, is the clue, the thread in 
the labvrinth which carries us far back in the ages to the 
day* of'Zoroaster. Yes. Heroditus, the oldest historian in the 
world narrates that at Persepolis, in the palace built by 
Darius and his son Xerxes, 500 years before the Christian Era 
in the hall of che hundred columns, the walls were ornamented 
Avith representations of Ormurzd and his legions of light com- 
battin- with the impure creation of the bad genii of the dark 
and wicked Ahriman. His description of the approaches 
to the Kings House suggests the appearance of the frontage 
of this Capitol after the steps and portico are completed and 
the grounds laid out according to the plans of Mr. Olmstead 
the landscape designer. 

Savs the historian "The road lay through a park and 
o-arde/ Flowers of every shape and hue, even to the choicest 
e?otics pleased the eye and filled the air with fragrance, 
whi^^e?h J Persian taste was gratified by the singing ot ccunt- 
Iss birds and the murmering of silver fountains. The 
Ir'ind marble starcase contained lOB steps, and ed to the 
Sreat terrace, thirty-five feet'above the level ot the plain. 
The s Ih-cas; was broad enough for ten horsemen to nde 
abieast The gold and colors which sparkled upon the walls 
and pillars were brilliantly starred by the gorgeous hues ot 
the letting sun and richly set olT by the clear blue sky and ver- 
dant hills which formed the background ot this unnva le 
nfrtnre * * * Passing down along this we enter the hall 
o Xerxes, in which the great king received the tributes and 
frf ts from his various satriapies. Instead of Capitols, the 
foftv cohmins were surmounted by the heads of Gnffins, but 
the'hall itself was roofed with cedar." 

Thi« then, was perhaps the germ of the idea that finds it.s 
expression in this vast building, and the oriental grandeur of 



3 

its golden corridor, was possibly suggested by the splendid 
realities which surrounded the golden age of Jeuishid, the 
ancient sovereign of Iran. As we pass along we find other 
points of resemblance between this capitol and the great 
palace at Persepolis, in the halls touched up with the 
gleam of tawny gold, and fretted with wide belts of ornamental 
climbing, in the blue and Vermillion, in the royal apartments 
of the executive chamber, in the pavements of red and blue, 
the subdued panel wall of the Judiciary rooms, and the pure 
splendor of the Senate apartments. In this direction they 
have made a complete success — a splendid triumph — and the 
effect as we pass along from room to room is showy and bewil- 
dering. 

Grecian architecture was mainly directed to providing fit 
temples of the Gods, as the schools and debates were con- 
ducted in the streets and in the open air. 

In ancient Rome the Senate chamber was a comparatively 
small building from which the debates were adjourned to the 
forum or public square, where the vote was taken by a show 
of uplifted hands. 

About the time of the first emperors, the Basilica was 
erected as a court of justice and a hall of legislation. It was 
invariably the form of a parallelogram, with sometimes an 
apse for the raised seat of the Judges and Jurymen. A 
square roof covered the room, as being the best adapted to 
the transmission of sound, nor were there any pillars except 
as they supported a gallery for the use of spectators. 

In Venice, a city of graceful arcades and gleaming walls, 
for a thousand years the mistress of the seas, her greatest 
architecture was concentrated upon the shrine of St. Mark, 
which in the hearts of the old Venetians was a type of the 
Redeemed Church of God and a scroll for his written word. 

But neither in Greece, nor in Rome, nor in medieval 
Venice — you may search the annals of history and at no time 
from the days of the golden age of Jemshid to the present 
day, is it recorded that for the legislative rooms or halls of de- 
bate, any architect was found so courageous, or commissioner 
so bold as to give his sanction to a ceiling of sandstone. 

In courts of law the axis of sound is directed to and from 
a single spot, to wit. the Judge's seat; the lawyers and the 
jury being within twelve or fifteen feet from each other. But 
in a hall of debate the axis of sound must be directed to the 
seats of the different members, to the center, and to the sides, 
not to anj' one point. 

Let us now strip this room of its ornamentation and tin- 
sel, and glamour and go down to the hardpan, as it were, of 
the chamber. I know I am now treading on delicate ground. 
I renjember the line 

"Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread,''' 



aod I am loth to venture a criticism where professional archi- 
tects and commissioners have directed their best energies to 
make a perfect room and have failed. 

But it seems to me, and I say it with all deference, that 
the utilitarian and practical view, of means to an end, has 
been lost sig^ht of here. They have put in its place a poetic 
and sentimental idea of startling the world of design- 
ers, architects and draughtsmen, with something that 
should be ''sui generis.'''' They exhibit with pride and satis- 
faction the largest groined stone arch in the world. They 
speak of this great stone room (I wish they could speak and 
be heard and understood in it), and that "in the dispersed 
harmony of this hierarchy of ordered masses — and the balance 
and opposition of sweeping curves — there has been achieved 
in the America of the XlXth century, a work to be compared 
with what has been done in more famous building ages." 
Well, they are welcome to this, but it has been done at great 
cost. To accomplish it, their hand has been unrestrained and 
their means unlimited. No arm has been raised to check 
their license, and the warning voice of the executive was lost 
"in the deep toned ribs, the fretted belts and sweeping lines 
of the creamy sandstone of this hall." 

Ruskin describes a law of singular importance in archi- 
tecture and that is "the law of common sense," not to sacri- 
fice the useful for the ornamental, the material for the imma- 
terial, utility for beauty. 

The greatest glory of a building is not in its stones, nor 
in its gold. Its glory is in its usefulness, in its definite pur- 
pose; and whatever interferes with that in its entirety, be- 
comes an impertinence and a vulgarity. 

The primary object of the new Capitol is for the better ac- 
commodation of the legislature, the executive and the court 
of appeals. Here the laws are made, executed and expound- 
ed. All else is subordinate to this. The executive will have 
the pleasant chambers provided for them. The court of 

appeals, 

"Where iustice vindicates and wisdom guides." 

will take possession of their own, and in their search for 
the reason of the law which is the life of the law, will chrys- 
talize the works of this legislature as long as the vast but- 
tresses which support this pile are washed by the passing 
waves of humanity. Let us now make a satisfactory cham- 
ber of the assembly — the commons which is the popular 
branch, of equal sovereignty, with the other body and which 
more directly represents the people. 

I think I am borne out by the experience of the past and 
the usage of the present, when I assert that the Basilica 
shape, in other words a parallelogram or its cube is the 
proper form of room to meet the acoustic [)rinciples I have 



5 

endeavored above to set forth. Westminster Hall, a thou- 
sand court houses, and ten thousand churches throughout the 
land demonstrate the fact. 

The proper material for the sides and ceiling rural experi- 
ence has shown to be, plaster upon studding. This simple 
mode best fills the conditions of a room for speaking and 
hearing. 

The extreme limit for the height of a ceiling for good 
acoustics, is thirty-two feet. The chambers of the Senate 
and Representatives at Washington, are thirty feet high in a 
parallelogram form with a flat ceiling of glass, with galleries 
for a thousand people, and the acoustics are perfect. 

This chamber then has three irremediable defects, first 
in its irregular shape, being fifty-five feet in width by eighty- 
four feet in length, below, and eighty-four feet in width and 
one hundred and forty feet in length above with its raised gal- 
leries. Four pillars— we all see them— support the arched roof, 
over fifty feet in height and break up the area into irregular 
forms. 

This is a violation of every law of acoustics, and 
the waves of sound instead of being caught up and rebounded 
are conveyed away and dissipated. 

Second. In its being an immense chamber or crypt 
of stone. It is full of reverberation and repelling sound, like 
any other stone vault. These perplex the speaker and are 
painful to the audience. 

Third, in the transitory character of the sandstone mate- 
rial of the roof, which has already shown symptoms of decay, 
and inability to support the weight upon it. 

What then is to be done in the future. It seems to me 
we have a choice of three things. 

1. Remain as we are, in this vault, this cave, and endure 
all its faults and incongruities and dangers 

2. Endeavor to improve the acoustics of the ehamber. 

3. Abandon this hall entirely, and find elsewhere in this 
building, proper quarters, and if the sound and sober judg- 
ment of this assembly shall lead in that direction, let it be 
fitted up, not with barbaric splendor, reviving the golden 
hall of Jemshed, but in accordance with the simplicity of a 
Republic, and of the moderate taste of those who now or are 
hereafter to occupy seats on this floor. 

The members of this legislative body are composed of all 
classes of society. A majority of them serve but one term. Not 
all are accustomed to public speaking. Some may have phys- 
ical defects, and many pronounce and articulate indifferently. 
But they represent constituencies in city and country. Some 
represent the opulence which a long century of prosperity 
has accumulated in single families. Others represent 
the traffic which moves wirh ceaseless regularity from 



6 

the Great Lakes, past the base of this Capitol, to the 
seaport of Manhattan. Others represent the agriouln 
tore of the interior. The valor of our arms, the enterprise of 
our commerce, the intellect of the professions, the thrift and 
skill of our people, are here by their deputies. All have 
practical knowledge of the wants of their constituencies, all 
have an equal sitting here and are entitled to the same re- 
spect as the practiced debater. Here or somewhere in this 
building, they should have a place where they can listen and 
hear readily, and, when the occasion calls for it can be 
readily heard. 

Mr. Chairman, here I am impelled to speak of another 
matter. I remember twenty-one years ago the Assembly room 
in the old Capitol, compact, of good size and height, in which 
it was easy to hear and to speak. For fifty years that cham- 
ber, was adorned with a portrait of George Washington. 
He was the president of that convention which secured the 
blessings of liberty in these United States of America. I felt, 
sir. that he was one of us, and that his spirit, to some extent, 
influenced the legislation of our body, and in part shaped its 
Action. The commissioners found that this painting had 
no pl^,ce in this new chamber. In their wisdom, they have 
given to us in place of this, paintings which are not portraits, 
whose merit seems to be their cost, and the meaning of which 
is not perceptible without an explanatory note. They pre- 
sent a dceam of the far-away past, in place of the vitality of 
.the living present, a fiction for a history, a shadow for a sub- 
stance. 

But it seems to me that this portrait should have been 
moved into the warmth and light of this chamber, with the 
Bible on which members take their oaths, and the gavel with 
which the speaker enforces the rules of order. 

So Eneas moved his Penates from Troy to Italy. 

So the Venetians brought back the famous four horses 
carried away by Napoleon and with much pomp restored 
them to their place over the doorway of St. Mark's. 

So the priests brought the ark of the testimony into the 
temple of Solomon and placed it under the wings of the cher- 
ubims. 

I would place it behind the speaker's desk, there to 
be and remain a friend, an advisor, an oracle, so long as 
these walls shall last, reminding us of the valor, and the wis- 
dom that laid broad and deep the foundations of this Re- 
public. 

And, now with an expenditure on this Capitol larger than 
the cost of any single improvement ever constructed in the 
state, although but two-thirds built, greater by one hundred 
times the cost of the old Capitol, is it not best to take a rest, 
ascertain our bearings in this surging sea of extravagance 



and try and guide it into the smooth waters of frugality and 
prudence. 

"So from the rocks the rapid vessel flies 

And the hoarse din like distant thunder dies." 

Sir, to go back to the early days of this enterprise, I 
am told that in the selection of the site, the state had offered 
to them without cost, on the beautiful City Park, within half 
am e of th s spot, tmple ground for the construction of this 
edifice. I am finding no fault with the present loeation as 
such, but it is well to remember that in the costly buildings 
that are to be and have been cleared away, including the 
beautiful and ample library building, and the old Capitol, 
which all might have been saved, there will have been a loss 
and destruction of property whose value is quite one million of 
dollars. 

In the search for material for the edifice, the commission 
settled upon two shades of granite which were found at 
Keene, ^New Hampshire, and at Hallowell, Maine. These 
cost six dollars and six dollars and seventy-five cents 
respectively per cubic foot. 

Could not our own state in its length and breadth have 
furnished the material for its own building. It has marble, 
limestone and gianite in profusion, and it has its 
system of canals from end to end, and from side to side to float 
the materials to this point. 

Next having secured the hardest kind of material for work 
ing they made use of the finest kind of cutting. Instead of 
having it hammer dressed they applied six-line cutting at a 
cost of |3 23 per foot, which, including the setting, made a cost 
of $10 per foot for the granite. Next they fell into the hands of 
that patr (jtic and unselfish body of men known as the 
mason and plai-terers union, who laid the brick at a total cost 
including material of $18.77 per thousand. 

I will venture to assert that the selection of the material, 
the two shades of granite over marble, the fine cutting over 
the hammer dressed, and the cost of laying, has alone made 
a difference of quite two millions of dollars in the cost of the 
edifice. 

I have before me the former plan for this assembly cham- 
ber. It exhibits a smaller room 50 feet wide by 100 feet deep, 
which was to be covered by a flat ceiling of glass, which was 
to let in the light. The alterations which increased the size, 
and gave us the stone ceiling, have cost the state, I am told, 
an excess of a half million of dollars. 

The public buildings at Ottawa, three in number, are ex- 
pensively and massively built at a cost of about three million 
of dollars. 

The Michigan State Capitol was built at a cost of $1,430,- 
000 and was dedicated Jan. 1, 1879. In size it is 345 feet in 
length and 191 and a half feet in depth. Its extreme height 



8 

to the top of the dome 267 feet, and it covers one and one- 
sixth acres. I have before uie a copy of its inaugural pro- 
ceedings from which I make the following extract: 

"The commission has aimed to erect a capitol worthy of 
the dignity of the state, massive and elegant: void of all triv- 
ial ornamentation, and pleasing in appearance; of enduring 
material, substantial in construction, and perfect in work- 
manship, and while earnestly endeavoring to accomplish this, 
we have not been unmindful of the injunction of the legisla- 
ture to make no expenditure exceeding the appropration." 

But a few hours distant from here is the New Capitol at 
Hartford, Conn. It is a fire proof building built of white 
marble from designs by Mr. Upjohn. It is occupied by the 
Governor, Legislature, Judicial department, State library. 
Comptroller, Treasurer, School and Railroad commissioners. 
In size it is 295 feet front by 187 feet deep. The total height 
to the top of the crowning figure is 256 feet, and the pxact 
cost of the work is $2,256,140.50. 

The former State Engineers, Mr. Richmond, and Mr. Mc- 
Alpine, gentlemen of integrity and capacity, when the plans 
were submitted to them, and before the Legislature had com- 
mitted themselves to the construction of this great edifice, esti- 
mated that the cost would not exceed $4,000,000. I know it 
has been stated that the plans were subsequently changed and 
enlarged, so that it was not this, but some other building that 
was estimated for by them. But I do assert that many members 
voted for the appropriation on the basis of the statement of 
the State Engineers, and further, that the then Leg- 
islature had no thought or idea, that they were com- 
mitting themselves and the country irrevocably to a plan 
which would cost in its completion over $15,000,000. 

The noted Court House of New York city built at a cost 
of $15,000,000 has passed into history as an exemple of the 
thieving and corruption of the Tweed dynasty. This Capitol 
will be known in the future, not as an illustration of a corrupt 
and fraudulent age, but as a pattern of extravagance and 
wanton expenditure hardly less to be deplored. 

In the interior arrangement of the space the same prodiga' 
style seems to have been adopted. The height of the Com- 
mittee rooms is twenty-five feet, when twelve feet in height 
would be apparently ample. 

In the vast halls and wonderful staircases architecture 
has been royal in its uiagnificence. But modern ingenuity 
has devised the ELEVATOR, and the motive power in the 
building carries the multitude up and down and therefore the 
.staircases become subordinate structures in their use. 

It is said to be a symbol of the resources, the power 
and the grandeur of the Empire State. But is it a symbol of 
THK I'KOI'IjK, their sign or emblem of representation, or of the 
jjroducta of the state? 

The tiling has been brought from across the ocean, the 



marble from Tennessee, the onyx and the fancy woods from 
Mexico. 

Did it ever occur to the authorities in charge that noth- 
ing, absolutely nothing, except the honest and homely brick 
was represented from New York ? And yet eighteen counties 
furnish black and white and variegated and verd antique mar- 
bles, while the beautiful cherry, ash, chestnut, maple, walnut 
and oak which grow in perfection in our state, are abso- 
lutely ignored. 

The citizens of this State are mainly laboring people 
or those who inherit the wealth acquired by labor 
and frugality. The chief property of the state is in 
their hands and they pay the taxes. They cultivate their 
own farms and educate their children. They produce the 
means of independence. If not landholders, they earn wages 
which accumulate and are turned into capital, into manufac- 
tures, by industry and economy. 

That this capitol, grandiose in design, and oriental in its 
splendor, is in any part of it, a symbol of the frugality and 
homely virtues of the people, may well be doubted. It 
remains to be seen, whether its great cost and the neces- 
sary annual outiaj', of quite one hundred thousand dollars, 
will result in adding to either the convenience or health of 
those for whose needs it was constructed, or in the elevation 
of the aesthetic taste of the community. 

Pericles insisted that the wealth of the state should 
be expended in such works as when executed, should by the 
magnificence of their design and inimitable beauty and per- 
fection be eternal monuments of its glory, and so he built the 
Parthenon at a cost of one thousand talents, or one million of 
dollars, which has stood for 2,000 years upon the Acropolis 
for the instruction and admiration of mankind. 

But Plato, as Cicero says, who formed a judgment of things, 
not from their outward splendor, but from truth, observes 
after his master, Socrates, that Pericles with all his grand 
offices and other works, had not improved the mind of one of 
the citizens, in wisdom, but rather corrupted the purity and 
simplicity of their ancient manners. 



LIBRfiRY OF CONGRESS 



014 109 128 1 



